A seat reserved for Andy Jassy

RC/PL/2026/2

From: Robert Nikic, Advisory Council Chair, Reseated Councils

Letter to Andy Jassy, Chief Executive Officer, Amazon, Transmitting the Platform Fairness Standard

Dear Mr Jassy,

1.I write on behalf of the Platform Council of Reseated’s Founders Assembly to transmit the Platform Fairness Standard, adopted by the Assembly on 13 August 2026 as RC/PL/RES/2026/1. The resolution is enclosed with this letter. I invite Amazon to review it and to sign the Standard through the reserved CEO seat described below.

2.Reseated is a global assembly of small-business owners, organized in seven councils. It was launched on 10 February 2026. Its Founders Assembly brings together members who report recurring conditions affecting small businesses and develops proposed practices through a defined public process. Reseated is a nonprofit. I write as Advisory Council Chair of Reseated Councils, not as a representative of any government or regulator.

Mandate and process

3.The Platform Council’s mandate is to describe and test patterns in the way digital platforms affect business users. It does not assess an individual company on the basis of an isolated account, nor does it ask members to identify their businesses publicly. Members may remain anonymous unless they choose to occupy a public seat. The Council’s work is directed toward practices that can be stated clearly, considered consistently, and adopted by platforms across the countries in which they operate.

4.Reseated’s process begins with reports from members. A proposed issue is then assessed against five parts of a pattern test: volume, frequency, consistency, spread, and corroboration. If the test is met, the relevant council develops a draft, opens it for public consultation, considers submissions, and places a final text before the Assembly for a ballot. Following adoption, the Assembly transmits the text to the chief executives whose organizations can adopt it. This letter is part of that last step.

5.The Platform Council’s initial call for evidence was issued as RC/PL/2026/1. Its interim pattern review and certification are recorded in RC/PL/2026/N.1 and RC/PL/2026/N.2. The Assembly adopted the Platform Fairness Standard on 13 August after consultation on the draft and revised draft. The result was 86.4 per cent in favour, with 58 per cent turnout. The vote gives the Standard its mandate as an Assembly resolution; it does not make the text a law or a substitute for legal obligations.

International evidence

6.As of 20 August 2026, the Assembly had 1,366 members in 49 countries and had received 4,065 reports from 50 countries. The Platform Council comprised 410 members from 48 countries and had received 1,764 reports from 50 countries. These are the Council’s report totals at the date of this letter. They are evidence submitted to Reseated, not a census of all small businesses or a finding about any particular platform.

7.The reports show a recurring concern about two situations: accounts suspended and funds held. Members recorded 990 reports involving account suspension and 774 involving funds held. These categories are presented separately and are not represented as mutually exclusive. The median amount at stake reported to the Council was approximately US$4,107. These figures describe members’ reported experiences; they do not establish that a particular company caused any reported event.

8.The geographic spread is visible both in the countries from which reports were submitted and in the leading country counts available for the Council. The following figures are the reported counts for the listed countries, grouped by

broad region for readability. They are not regional totals, and they do not imply that reports from other countries were absent.

9.The consistent pattern is not that every report describes the same event or that every platform follows the same process. It is that small-business owners in multiple countries report serious consequences when an account is suspended, a listing is removed, a payout is held, or a fee is changed without safeguards they consider adequate. The reported consequences can include disruption to sales, uncertainty about access to funds, and difficulty understanding what action would resolve the matter. The Standard addresses the process around such decisions, rather than prescribing the outcome of any particular decision.

10.The Platform Council certified that PL-001 met all five parts of the pattern test on 12 May 2026. The evidence review considered volume, frequency, consistency, spread, and corroboration as distinct questions. The Council then consulted on its draft from 2 June to 2 July, receiving 487 comments. The final Assembly vote followed that consultation. This sequence is intended to make the proposed response accountable to the people affected while allowing platforms, partners, and other interested parties to examine the text.

The Standard and existing frameworks

11.The Standard asks for four protections before an account suspension, listing removal, payout hold, or fee change: written notice; a specific reason; review by a person; and a time limit on payout holds. It further asks that the same protections be available in every country where a platform operates. The text concerns notice, explanation, review, and timing. It does not require a platform to retain an account or listing

in every case, prohibit legitimate enforcement, or require a particular commercial decision.

12.The Standard is intended to be compatible with applicable legal requirements, while setting out a consistent baseline for small-business users across borders. In the European Union, the Platform-to-Business Regulation provides for a statement of reasons when a provider restricts or suspends a business user, and requires at least 30 days’ notice before termination of the whole service, subject to the Regulation’s terms and exceptions.¹ The Standard’s written-notice and specific-reason provisions are aligned with the principle that a business user should be told what action has been taken and why. Its request for consistent protections is an Assembly standard; it does not claim that every provision applies identically under every legal regime.

13.Article 17 of the Digital Services Act requires providers of intermediary services to give affected recipients a clear and specific statement of reasons for certain restrictions, including restrictions on visibility, service, or an account. The reasons include information on whether automated means were used in making the decision.² The Standard’s request for a specific reason and review by a person is directed at making a decision understandable and capable of meaningful examination. It should not be read as a legal interpretation of Article 17, a statement about the scope of any particular service, or a claim that any company has or has not complied with that Article.

14.Japan’s Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms provides a further relevant case. For designated platform operators, the framework includes disclosure requirements concerning matters such as conditions for withholding payments.³ The Standard’s time limit for payout holds and requirement for a reasoned notice address related practical concerns, while remaining a distinct Assembly proposal. This letter does not assert that a particular legal duty applies to a particular service in every jurisdiction, or make a finding about Amazon’s compliance with any law.

15.Amazon operates platforms used by small businesses in many countries. The Standard is therefore offered as a practical, company-wide commitment that can reduce the risk of protections depending solely on a seller’s location. Where legal

requirements already provide protections, the Standard can serve as a clear operational baseline; where requirements differ or are less specific, it offers a common expectation. Implementation would remain subject to applicable law and to the terms of the resolution.

Requests to Amazon

16.The Platform Council respectfully requests that Amazon:

1. Review the adopted text of RC/PL/RES/2026/1 and identify the appropriate senior team to assess its operational and legal implications.
2. Sign the Platform Fairness Standard through the reserved CEO seat, if Amazon is prepared to adopt the commitments in the resolution.
3. Provide written notice before an account suspension, listing removal, payout hold, or fee change, except where a legally required or urgent circumstance makes advance notice impracticable. Where advance notice cannot be given, provide notice as soon as practicable.
4. Give the affected business user a specific reason for the action, in language that identifies the relevant issue sufficiently for the user to understand what is being addressed.
5. Make available review by a person, with a route for the business user to submit relevant information and have it considered before a decision is treated as final, where practicable.
6. Set and communicate a time limit for payout holds, including a process to review the hold and inform the business user of its status if the stated period must be extended.
7. Apply these protections consistently in every country in which the relevant platform operates, subject to applicable law and any necessary, clearly explained local variation.
8. Identify a contact point for implementation questions and, if the Standard is signed, provide a brief public description of the steps Amazon will take to put the commitments into practice.

17.These requests are intentionally directed to processes and safeguards. They do not ask Amazon to disclose confidential security information, waive legitimate rights, or decide any individual member’s case through Reseated. Nor do they ask the company to accept every report as proven. They ask for a procedure in which an affected business can receive an intelligible explanation, seek human review, and know how long a payout hold may continue.

18.The Assembly recognizes that implementing a consistent process across services and jurisdictions requires operational work. A company may need to identify existing procedures, determine where changes are necessary, and establish a method for measuring whether the commitments are being applied. The request is not for a claim of instant completion. If Amazon is willing to sign, an implementation plan can make the commitment meaningful while allowing the company to describe a realistic sequence and timetable.

Reserved seat and public record

19.The Platform Council has reserved a CEO seat for Amazon as part of the Assembly’s process of transmitting the adopted Standard to platform leaders. The seat is an invitation to accept the resolution’s commitments, not a claim that Amazon has endorsed them. Signing means that the company, through the appropriate authorized representative, communicates its acceptance of the Platform Fairness Standard in writing and identifies the capacity in which the signatory acts. The Secretariat can provide the text and record the signed commitment against the seat.

20.Reseated tracks each CEO seat using the following statuses: Proposed, Letter sent, Delivered, Replied, Signed, and Empty chair. The statuses record procedural events, not a judgment about a company’s intentions or the merits of its position. As of the date of this letter, the Amazon seat is recorded as Letter sent. Delivery confirmation, any reply, and any signed commitment will be recorded when established. The designation does not imply that a reply has been received, that the letter has been read, or that a decision has been made.

21.Any reply received from Amazon concerning this invitation will be published in full, subject only to any legally required redaction or a specific confidentiality restriction agreed in advance. Reseated will not characterize a reply through invented quotations or attribute views to the company beyond what it states. If Amazon signs, the signature and the resulting status will be recorded. If no signature is made, the seat status will be reported neutrally under the Assembly’s tracking process; no explanation will be imputed to the company.

22.The same standard of accuracy applies to Reseated’s evidence. Members’ accounts are not attributed to named businesses, and the Council does not ask a company to respond to an identifiable member through this letter. If Amazon wishes to examine the material underlying the aggregate figures, Reseated can share anonymized data and a description of the reporting and pattern-review method. Any sharing would be designed to protect members’ identities and would not disclose names of businesses or information that could reasonably identify an individual member.

Closing

23.The Assembly adopted the Platform Fairness Standard because its members consider that understandable notice, a specific reason, human review, and a defined limit on payout holds are practical safeguards for businesses that depend on digital platforms. They are also safeguards that can be stated plainly and assessed across jurisdictions. The evidence and process behind the resolution are available for review; the resolution itself is attached for your consideration.

Notes and sources

Sources

1. Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services
2. European Commission, Digital Services Act: questions and answers on the DSA Transparency Database
3. Japan Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms
4. Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Digital Platforms